We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [263]
Herman shrugged. A woman of the world probably spoke like that, but he couldn't recall a brass band ever playing in Marstal. She'd been to the cinema too, where the film had been accompanied by a string orchestra. Twenty men at least, she said, and her eyes sparkled.
Several of the crewmen on the Marstal ships had brought instruments with them: two accordions, three harmonicas, and a violin. Off duty, they made up an entire orchestra themselves. That night there was music and singing. Ivar had a very fine voice, but it was his radio, in particular, that made him popular among the other crews. They were proud of him on the Kristina. He was theirs; no other ship had a man like Ivar. He'd switch on the radio, and voices came zooming in from all over the world, and music too, including the Portuguese fado. Ivar was the only one who knew that word, and he explained the mournful music to them. But even stranger sounds came from the radio—such as Arabic music from a station in Casablanca. Ivar had to admit defeat there. He couldn't put a name to it or tell them anything about it.
When Ivar turned on his radio, even the skippers couldn't resist, and came out of the cabin, where they'd been enjoying their Dutch gin and Riga Balsam. Miss Kristina did her round with the coffeepot and asked if anyone fancied pancakes, and a chorus of "Aye, aye!" rose from the men.
IN SETÚBAL Herman found himself among his peers again. They were sailors, and they were from Marstal. He'd beaten up a man in a doorway in Nyborg and claimed he'd done it for the sake of his town—but now he felt like an outsider. The trouble wasn't simply his jealousy. Perhaps it wasn't jealousy at all, but the fact that he didn't know where he belonged: he only really felt at home when he was in charge, treated with respect and fear.
The wind and the waves had a lawlessness and unpredictability that felt familiar to him. He sensed it the moment he embarked. On land, life became lilliputian again, and he stumbled around like an awkward, homeless giant, unable to squeeze through the doorways that bid others welcome.
There was a gentle feel to the evening, an intimacy that came from the warm air of the south—the way the stars were mirrored in the calm sea, the enigmatic quiet of the town, and the caress of music and voices. The skippers broke their habit and turned up together to mingle with the crew, amid the smell of pancakes that spread from the galley.
He was with his own, but he didn't belong among them. It stung him suddenly, a terrifying feeling of not being whole, but crippled. In one horrifying flash he observed himself from the outside and saw a monster. He wanted to hide, to flee this world he couldn't cope with, where he was on a lonely track that led nowhere.
He felt no urge to drink or fight. He just had to get away.
He went down to his cabin to get his revolver. Then he climbed over the rail and into the lifeboat that was moored to the side of the ship. He pushed off and began rowing.
Where was he going? He didn't know. He stopped and rested on the oars, at a loss. The port was deserted. No lights were lit, and the silence of the empty town seemed to fall from the night sky, as though Setúbal had been sucked into the vast vacuum of the universe the moment the curfew descended.
Suddenly he realized what he wanted. He wanted to walk the darkened streets. This was his territory: a forbidden zone where being spotted could cost you your life.
A moment ago a storm had raged within him. Now the tide in his veins turned, giving way to the dangerous silence of the ebb.
Making his strokes as noiseless as possible, he rowed slowly toward the nearest wharf. Only the faintest splashes were audible, and they were instantly swallowed by the dense darkness. The music and voices coming from the Kristina were now so far away that they seemed the echoes of another world, a world he'd left behind and could never return to.
He didn't know what awaited him in the abandoned streets, nor did he care. A